ABSTRACT
Parent-child interactions are the heart of family literacy services. Whether at home, in the classroom, or in the community, meaningful parent-child interactions can lead to enhanced language, literacy, emotional, and cognitive development. Parents benefit as well. Parents who are learning to support their children’s language and literacy development have the opportunity to enhance their own literacy skills when reading to their children. This chapter discusses those family literacy programs in which parents learn new ways to interact with their children by attending parent education sessions and by engaging in parent-child literacy interactions. These parent-child interactions around literacy are described in many programs as Parent and Child Together (PACT) Time, based on the model developed by the National Center for Family Literacy. These interactions bring parents and children together to work, play, read, and learn.
